By and large, the critics and readers gave me an affirmed sense of my identity as a writer. You might know this within yourself, but to have it affirmed by others is of utmost importance. Writing is, after all, a form of communication.

America is woven of many strands. I would recognise them and let it so remain. Our fate is to become one, and yet many. This is not prophecy, but description.

Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.

Education is all a matter of building bridges.

Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In conversation, …

So I was at liberty, let us say, to write something about Coney Island in winter. If they liked it it would appear in print, my name would be signed to it, and…

Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.